Lee Child - One Shot

“Nobody likes hopeless cases,” Helen said diplomatically. She was going to need him again in the future. No point in holding his feet to the fire.

“Not pro bono hopeless cases,” Franklin said.

“If I get a budget, will you come back on board?”

“Sure,” Franklin said. “Just call me.”

Then they hung up, all proprieties observed, their relationship preserved. The next call came ten minutes later. It was from her father, who sounded full of concern.

“You shouldn’t have taken this case, you know,” he said.

“It wasn’t like I was spoiled for choice,” Helen said.

“Losing might be winning, if you know what I mean.”

“Winning might be winning, too.”

“No, winning will be losing. You need to understand that.”

“Did you ever set out to lose a case?” she asked.

Her father said nothing. Then he went fishing.

“Did Jack Reacher find you?” he asked, meaning: Should I be worried ?

“He found me,” she said, keeping her voice light.

“Was he interesting?” Meaning: Should I be very worried ?

“He’s certainly given me something to think about.”

“Well, should we discuss it?” Meaning: Please tell me .

“I’m sure we will soon. When the time is right.”

They small-talked for a minute more and arranged to meet for dinner. He tried again: Please tell me . She didn’t. Then they hung up. Helen smiled. She hadn’t lied. Hadn’t even really bluffed. But she felt she had participated. The law was a game, and like any game it had a psychological component.

The third call was from Rosemary Barr at the hospital.

“James is waking up,” she said. “He coughed up his breathing tube. He’s coming out of the coma.”

“Is he talking?”

“The doctors say he might be tomorrow.”

“Will he remember anything?”

“The doctors say it’s possible.”

An hour later Reacher left the Metropole. He stayed east of First Street and headed north toward the off-brand stores he had seen near the courthouse. He wanted clothes. Something local. Maybe not a set of bib overalls, but certainly something more generic than his Miami gear. Because he figured he might head to Seattle next. For the coffee. And he couldn’t walk around Seattle in a bright yellow shirt.

He found a store and bought a pair of pants that the label called taupe and he called olive drab. He found a flannel shirt almost the same color. Plus underwear. And he invested in a pair of socks. He changed in the cubicle and threw his old stuff away in the store’s own trash bin. Forty bucks, for what he hoped would be four days’ wear. Extravagant, but it was worth ten bucks a day to him not to carry a bag.

He came out and walked west toward the afternoon sun. The shirt was too thick for the weather, but he could regulate it by rolling up the sleeves and opening a second button. It was OK. It would be fine for Seattle.

He came out into the plaza and saw that the fountain had been restarted. It was refilling the pool, very slowly. The mud on the bottom was an inch deep and moving in slow swirls. Some people were standing and watching it. Others were walking. But nobody was using the short route past the memorial tributes, where Barr’s victims had died. Maybe nobody would ever again. Instead everyone was looping the long way around, past the NBC sign. Instinctively, respectfully, fearfully; Reacher wasn’t sure.

He picked his way among the flowers and sat on the low wall, with the sound of the fountain behind him and the parking garage in front of him. One shoulder was warmed by the sun and the other was cool in the shade. He could feel the leftover sand under his feet. He looked to his left and watched the DMV building’s door. Looked to his right and watched the cars on the raised highway. They tracked through the curve, high up in the air, one after the other, single file, in a single lane. There weren’t many of them. Traffic up there was light, even though First Street itself was already building up to the afternoon rush hour. Then he looked to his left again and saw Helen Rodin sitting down beside him. She was out of breath.

“I was wrong,” she said. “You are a hard man to find.”

“But you triumphed nonetheless,” he said.

“Only because I saw you from my window. I ran all the way down, hoping you wouldn’t wander off. That was a half hour after calling all the hotels in town and being told you aren’t registered anywhere.”

“What hotels don’t know won’t hurt them.”

“James Barr is waking up. He might be talking tomorrow.”

“Or he might not.”

“You know much about head injuries?”

“Only the ones I cause.”

“I want you to do something for me.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“You can help me,” she said. “With something important.”

“Can I?”

“And you can help yourself.”

He said nothing.

“I want you to be my evidence analyst,” she said.

“You’ve got Franklin for that.”

She shook her head. “Franklin’s too close to his old PD buddies. He won’t be critical enough. He won’t want to tear into them.”

“And I will? I want Barr to go down, remember.”

“Exactly. That’s exactly why you should do it. You want to confirm that they’ve got an unbreakable case. Then you can leave town and be happy.”

“Would I tell you if I found a hole?”

“I’d see it in your eyes. And I’d know from what you did next. If you go, it’s a strong case. If you stay around, it’s weak.”

“Franklin quit, didn’t he?”

She paused, and then she nodded. “This case is a loser, all ways around. I’m doing it pro bono. Because nobody else will. But Franklin’s got a business to run.”

“So he won’t do it for free, but I will?”

“You need to do it. I think you’re already planning to do it. That’s why you went to see my father first. He’s confident, for sure. You saw that. But you still want a peek at the data. You were a thorough investigator. You said so yourself. You’re a perfectionist. You want to be able to leave town knowing everything is buttoned down tight, according to your own standards.”

Reacher said nothing.

“This gets you a real good look,” she said. “It’s their constitutional obligation. They have to show us everything. The defense gets a full discovery process.”

Reacher said nothing.

“You’ve got no choice,” she said. “They’re not going to show you anything otherwise. They don’t show stuff to strangers off the street.”

A real good look. Leave town and be happy. No choice.

“OK,” Reacher said.

She pointed. “Walk four blocks west and one block south. The PD is right there. I’ll go upstairs and call Emerson.”

“We’re doing this now?”

“James Barr is waking up. I need this stuff out of the way early. I’m going to be spending most of tomorrow trying to find a psychiatrist who will work for free. A medical plea is still our best bet.”

Reacher walked four blocks west and one block south. It took him under the raised highway and brought him to a corner. The PD had the whole block. Their building occupied most of it and there was an L-shaped parking lot on the rest of it for their vehicles. There were black-and-whites slotted in at angles, and unmarked detective cars, and a crime-scene van, and a SWAT truck. The building itself was made of glazed tan brick. It had a flat roof with big HVAC ducts all over it. There were bars on all the windows. Razor wire here and there around the perimeter.

He went inside and got directions and found Emerson waiting for him behind his desk. Reacher recognized him from his TV spot on Saturday morning. Same guy, pale, quiet, competent, not big, not small. In person he looked like he had been a cop since birth. Since the moment of conception, maybe. It was in his pores. In his DNA. He was wearing gray flannel pants and a white short-sleeve shirt. Open neck. No tie. There was a tweed jacket on the back of his chair. His face and his body were a little shapeless, like he had been molded by constant pressures.